Online card delivery company Moonpig.com is currently experiencing its highest ever level of UK Internet traffic in the run up to Valentine’s Day. For the week ending 2 February 2008, UK Internet visits to the website have grown six-fold by comparison to the same week in 2006. Moonpig.com is currently the most visited website within Hitwise’s Flowers & Gifts industry in the UK.
Searches for ‘moonpig’ have doubled year-on-year to the four weeks ending 2 February 2008, and it is now the second most searched for term sending traffic to Flowers & Gifts websites, after ‘interflora’. The majority of visitors to the website are women, who accounted for 60-65% of visitors to the website over the last year.

Another romantic trend to look out for over the next week is Valentine’s poems. In 2007, ‘valentines poems’ was the largest search term containing the word ‘valentines’ during the week ending 17 February 2007, overtaking searches for ‘valentines gifts’ and ‘valentines cards’. This trend looks to be replicated this year, with searches for ‘valentines poems’ already on the increase.

Poemsforfree.com received 30% of UK Internet traffic from searches for ‘valentines poems’ last year during the valentine season, and received 41% of traffic from searches for the term over the last four weeks. Over half (59%) of visitors to the website are female. The most popular types of poems being searched for are ‘short valentines poems’, ‘funny valentines poems’ and ‘rude valentines poems’, with the vast majority of sites receiving traffic from searches relying on organic rather than paid search.
In addition to sending cards and poems to their loved ones, Britain’s Valentine lovers are also busy booking romantic breaks. There have been more searches for romantic getaways this year than there were in 2007, with searches for ‘romantic weekend breaks’, ‘romantic hotels’ and ‘romantic breaks’ on the increase during January. UK consumers are visiting boutique hotel booking websites as opposed to larger travel agencies, with sites such as Roomforromance.com, Romantichotels.co.uk and Offpeakluxury.com among the top recipients of traffic.